


remember me I ask

by pantsoflobster



Series: this is not the house that pain built [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Adoptive Parents Martin Blackwood and Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Parenthood, Temporary Amnesia, post-apocalypse happy ending universe, they have a teenage daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:28:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27599588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pantsoflobster/pseuds/pantsoflobster
Summary: Almost twenty years on, Jon wakes up one morning thinking he’s back at the Panopticon, with no memory of their lives together since, their home, or even their daughter. Martin is left to hold it all together while Jon grapples his way back to the present.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: this is not the house that pain built [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683676
Comments: 23
Kudos: 296





	remember me I ask

**Author's Note:**

> cw: temporary amnesia
> 
> This is part of my mushaboom universe, but it ended up too long and self-contained to just be a chapter of that. It probably reads ok if you haven’t read that, but there are definitely some specific references here and there. 
> 
> all you need to know: they ended the apocalypse, they still live in london, they have an adopted daughter named Ellen, and Jon teaches history at a secondary school  
> oh and anyone alive as of 160 remains alive as far as main cast goes
> 
> yea so my rudimentary googling has solidified that this is 1000% not how temporary amnesia works but we are suspending disbelief and attributing it to previous supernatural trauma in this case. the side effects from having a spooky fear entity in your brain for a while

Martin was only a bit concerned when his alarm went off and Jon was still in bed. If he ever slept past six, it usually meant he was coming down with something. It wouldn’t be a surprise, what with the weather changing and his stressful start to the school year. He reckoned if he was right, he’d be able to convince Jon to take the day off and therefore could stand to let him sleep a few more minutes while he showered. 

He still hadn’t stirred when Martin returned to the room, so before he got dressed, he went over to Jon and gently nudged his shoulder.

“Hey, love,” he whispered, gaining little more than a grunt and a shuffle. “You should get up.”

Jon followed that with a prolonged groan while Martin turned to the closet, satisfied with the rustling of covers indicating he was in fact waking up. 

Then Jon’s voice came from behind him, very small. 

“What is this place?” 

Martin whipped around, halfway through buttoning his shirt.

“What?” he asked, coming out as half a laugh.

Jon was sat up in bed looking tense and disoriented, bracing himself with his hands gripping the covers at either side. 

“Where are we? Did it--what happened?”

“Was it a dream?” 

“I don’t know, I can’t--I can’t feel the…” He lifted a hand to his head and raked it through his hair, glancing around with gaining urgency. “Martin, where are we?” 

“Jon,” he said carefully, doing up the rest of his shirt and slowly approaching the side of the bed. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” 

Jon looked up at him, panic setting into his eyes. “We were--is this a, a--is this… Is he gone? Did we--what did we do?”

“Hey,” Martin said, sinking down to his knees at the side of the bed and taking Jon’s frantic hands in his own. “Hey, slow down. You’re okay. It was just a dream, love.”

Jon’s eyes went wild. “No, it wasn’t, this isn’t right. Something’s very wrong, and I can’t--I can’t tell what it is, I can’t see anything,”

“You can’t _see?_ ” Martin cried. 

“No, not like--the Eye, it’s gone, Martin, I--” He cut himself off with a gasp and suddenly reached out to cradle Martin’s cheek, tender disbelief washing over his face. “Martin, what happened to you? You look--” 

He said nothing more, just traced lines on Martin’s face with the tips of his fingers.

Martin knew how the feeling of an awful dream could linger, but he’d never seen Jon this out of it for more than a few seconds after waking up. As soon as he really regained consciousness, he always became immediately aware of his surroundings, that he was home and safe with Martin. Sometimes it took a bit to shake off the feeling, but it had never been like this. The way he was talking, though, it almost sounded like...

“This might be a silly question, but do you know what year it is?”

Jon laughed humorlessly. “Do you?”

That was decidedly not a good response. “Jon, I’m going to need you to answer me, please. Just to the best of your ability.”

“I mean, wouldn’t it be--it’s… it was 2018 when it changed, so--”

“Okay,” Martin said, nodding to try to keep himself calm. So Jon was missing time, and a whole lot by the sound of it. What were you supposed to do in this situation? What was he supposed to say or not say, ask or not ask? “Okay, er…” He didn’t want to confuse Jon even more, but he needed to understand. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“We, ah…” Jon squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head slightly. “The Panopticon, we… we killed him, didn’t we?”

Martin stared blankly at him for a beat too long before responding. “Yeah, love. We did.”

“And then we--is this it? Did it work?”

He drew in a deep breath, brushing his thumb over the back of Jon’s hand. “It worked. It’s just that…”

“What? What happened?” 

“That was a really long time ago, Jon. Almost twenty years ago.” 

It was Jon’s turn to stare blankly. “What?” 

“Yeah, love. You’ve got me pretty worried now. I’ve never seen you like this.” 

“Twenty years?” he rasped. 

Martin nodded and Jon took a sharp inhale, jerking his head around the room to take in his surroundings before landing back on him.

“What do you mean? I-I--It can’t be, we were just… The only thing I can remember is--is--”

Martin shushed him and rose to his feet, throwing his arms around Jon and pulling him to his body. He successfully lulled him into a stunned silence, gaining himself a moment to untangle what he could even do to help. 

“Alright, listen,” he said, smoothing down Jon’s unruly hair with both hands and ducking to kiss the crown of his head. “I need to go make some phone calls, love. Everything’s gonna be okay, I promise. Just stay right here and relax and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Jon barely nodded before saying, “Okay, but Martin, I--”

“Please trust me, Jon,” he pleaded. “I promise you’re safe. There’s absolutely nothing that could hurt you here. I’ll be right back.” 

“Okay,” he breathed out softly. 

Martin could hardly bring himself to let Jon out of his sight, but he needed a moment to think. He needed to think, and he needed to call their GP, probably. God, he had to call the school to call Jon out of work, too, but he really just wanted to call a doctor and get help right this instant. Martin would probably have to call out, too, unless this miraculously cleared up in the next twenty minutes. He should probably call Jon’s therapist while he’s at it, just in case he could help. 

Hurrying down the stairs and into the kitchen, he was hit by a shattering realization at the sight of a hoodie draped over the stool by the counter, and the photos on the refrigerator, and the lunch box sat there waiting to be filled.

If Jon couldn’t remember anything past the Panopticon, he wouldn’t know Ellen at all. 

He shook his head and steeled himself. There was no time to get caught up. The first calls he made were to both their workplaces to call them out for the day. Those were easy. The next call he made was actually to Jon’s therapist. He’d seen Jon for years and was the only person outside of their close personal circle who knew the gritty details of Jon’s involvement in the apocalypse. Martin figured it would be easiest to explain to him Jon’s state at first and why it was particularly concerning. 

To Martin’s immense relief, his therapist thought it sounded not unlike transient global amnesia, just perhaps escalated due to the highly abnormal trauma Jon’s brain had sustained. It was likely a response to stress and would clear up on its own in a couple of hours, but he graciously made time for them to come in late morning just in case talking to him could help Jon along in recovering some memories.

The GP gave him much the same rudimentary diagnosis (though Martin had left out some of the details) and recommended he take Jon to a hospital so he could be seen by someone right away just to be safe. 

That’s what they would do, then. Therapist first, then A&E. 

When he finally hung up the phone, he set it down with a massive sigh, gripping the edge of the counter and letting his head hang down for just a moment. 

“Dad? What’s happening?”

Ellen stood in the kitchen doorway in her school uniform, her backpack looped over one arm. Her face was twisted in concern and her hands crumpled together in a tight, anxious ball near her stomach. She had to have heard him.

“Ah…” He picked his glasses from his face and rubbed at his eyes, stalling while he searched for the right way to explain. “Dad’s not doing so great this morning. I’m sure he’s going to be fine, but he… He, um…” 

Ellen stepped closer and her eyes were already shining with worried tears. She’d always been intuitive when something was wrong with her dads, having seen them through some bleak moments a kid her age shouldn’t have to be privy to. By the look on her face, she knew it was bad. “What’s going on?”

“He can’t remember anything,” Martin admitted. 

“What?”

“Not--not _nothing,_ but he thinks it’s a long time ago. It’s probably just a response to stress and I’m going to take him to the doctor this morning. I’ve just talked to them and it sounds like this should pass, but for now, he’s really confused and I…” He sighed, knowing he should be stronger, but was conflicted in the interest of being transparent and open. She deserved that. “I don’t know what else to do, El. I’m just going to keep an eye on him until the appointment. Will you be alright going to school?”

“I--I guess…”

“I just think you should, and hopefully when you come home, we’ll have some answers. Alright?”

“Alright,” she said, with that thoughtful, furrowed brow that looked so much like Jon’s. “Can I go see him before I leave?”

He gripped her shoulders with both hands, trying to convey at once an apology and sympathy. “El, I don’t… I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t think…” He swallowed around the lump in his throat, but she finished his sentence for him. 

“He doesn’t… remember me?” 

Martin shook his head and then drew her close, wrapping her up in his arms and feeling her frightened tears dampen his shirt. 

“I’m so sorry, love,” he said. He pulled back so he could see her face and wiped her cheeks with his thumbs. “I promise he’s going to be fine. His memories should start coming back in a few hours and if it’s like they say, it doesn’t usually happen again. But we’re going to go get him checked out to make sure it’s nothing bigger. Alright?” 

She nodded. 

“Go ahead and get ready for the bus.”

He helped her pack her lunch, something she hadn’t let him do in about two years, and he sent her off with a hug and a promise that she’d text him if she needed anything. He shut the door behind her and leaned against it, breathing deeply for a moment before he returned upstairs.

When he did, Jon was curled up on his side with the covers pulled close to his chin, bunched up in his fists. 

“This is our house, isn’t it?” he said, quiet and matter of fact. 

“Yeah, Jon.” 

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered. “At least, the bedroom is.” 

Martin let himself chuckle at that and came around to sit on his own side of the bed. 

“The rest of it’s not bad, either. Little old and drafty, but we make do. Have done for a long while.” 

“Those pictures are nice,” Jon said, staring at the collage frame on the wall. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Wedding photos.”

“Wedding photos,” Jon repeated, high and airy like they were the most beautiful words he’d ever heard.

He turned over to face Martin, still gripping the duvet close to his chest. 

“I really feel--this feels very wrong.” 

“I bet,” he said, looking down at him with pity. He knew what he meant and it broke his heart. “It must be really confusing.” 

“It feels like a trick, but it feels so real, that I--I just don’t understand.”

“Well,” Martin sighed. “Your--the doctor said that this is abnormal but not unheard of. You’ve been under a lot of stress recently and with the kind of trauma you’ve been through, your brain might be sort of… trying to to protect itself.”

“But this… This much?”

He shook his head. “Not usually. My guess is your brain isn’t exactly a normal circumstance. Went through a lot of stuff hu--ah, most people’s brains don’t.” 

“I suppose that must be true.”

“It could be that your brain went back to… I don’t know, the biggest relief it can remember? The moment the most distressing thing in your life was finally over? Something like that. I don’t know.” 

“Perhaps,” Jon said. 

He was spitballing to a very confused man, here. He didn’t expect Jon to have the capacity to theorize with him. 

They sat in silence for a moment, Jon remaining frozen under the covers and staring at the ceiling. Martin bit at his lip, hit by a wave of guilt that he could have possibly lied to their daughter, promising everything would be okay. What if it wasn’t? It was killing him not to bring it up, even though he knew it was probably a lost cause at the moment. It might even make things worse for Jon, but he couldn’t keep stalling.

“Love, can I ask something?”

Jon nodded, and he just came right out with it. 

“Do you remember Ellen at all?” 

“Ellen?” he repeated, as if checking he heard right.

“Yeah. Can I show you a picture? I’m just wondering if it might help.”

Martin took out his phone and pulled up a recent photo of her, taking care to find one without either of them in it to avoid too much confusion. He handed his phone to Jon, who took it and looked down at the picture with that same furrowed brow he saw on Ellen not too long ago. 

“She looks so familiar… Who is she?” 

Martin took a deep breath, still unsure he should have even done this. 

“That’s our daughter, Jon. She’s fifteen years old.”

“What?” he breathed. He glanced up at Martin for just a second before dropping his wide eyes back to the photo. “Fifteen…” 

“I know,” Martin said. “We adopted her when she was one, so we’ve only had her for fourteen. That’s a lot, I’m sorry. I just thought maybe--I don’t know.” He shook his head hopelessly. 

“No, you’d think…” Jon trailed off, staring at the phone in his hands. “You’d think I’d remember something like that.” 

Jon looked over at him, his eyes full of fear, though laced with something akin to hope. 

“Is she here?” 

“She just left for school,” Martin said. “I didn’t… I thought it would be too much for you to see her right now. And vice versa.”

“Right,” Jon nodded, looking simultaneously disappointed and relieved. “That’s probably true.” 

So many things threatened to tumble out of Martin’s mouth, a desperate litany of facts about Ellen, her first words, her favorite books, how she spent last year drinking coffee in the morning in an attempt to feel more grown up but recently returned to tea because she simply preferred it. 

“She loves you a damn lot,” he said. “And you’re a really good dad, much better than you ever thought you’d be. Because I know what you’re probably thinking right now.” 

“I’m sure you can imagine,” he said. He passed the phone back to Martin and stared for a moment at his own hands, taking stock of the scars that were so much more faded than he’d expect, and the way his skin hung just a bit looser around his already bony fingers. 

“Martin, are you sure this is real?” 

“It is, love,” he answered. “No Eye, right?” 

“No, but--I couldn’t feel it at Salesa’s either, and it was killing me. But then we were at the Panopticon and we--” 

“And then it was over,” Martin said. He didn’t need to hear him rehash those final events. “We fixed it, and then we had years after that to heal and rebuild and learn to live together and… and just live. And that’s what we’ve done.” 

Jon let out a noise halfway between a sob and a groan. “It doesn’t feel like that.” 

“I know,” he said. “I know.” He didn’t know what else to say. 

Jon rolled over and fixed his arms around Martin’s hips, burying his face in the junction of his thigh and torso. Martin doubled over around him, gripping him as tight as he could, holding on to this man he’d loved for so long and been endlessly loved by in return. The thought that years of that love could simply drop out of Jon’s reach even though he was still right here, curled in his lap… 

Well, optimism in the face of catastrophe had always been one of Martin’s strong suits. Jon _had_ to be okay. He wouldn’t take it any other way. 

He ran his fingers through Jon’s hair, feeling he could offer nothing but brief physical comforts. If nothing else, it couldn’t hurt to try to diffuse the tension for just a moment. He might even be able to get him to laugh. 

“Jon?” 

He hummed his acknowledgement, face still buried in Martin’s belly.

“Earlier, when you saw my face, were you going to tell me I look old?”

Jon picked his head up and began to splutter. “I--no, I was--I was going to say _older,_ but it’s just that--you look so different--”

Martin chuckled, having gotten just what he wanted. “Yeah, because nearly twenty years have passed,” he said, smiling down at him. 

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, but I knew it would sound bad, which is why I stopped,” Jon said, then dropping to a whisper. “You look lovely. You look happy and… settled.” 

Martin’s cheeky grin broke into a frown again and he almost regretted his attempt at a tone shift.

“We are, love. Very happy.”

“And I missed it,” Jon said plainly. 

“Not at all,” he said. “You’ve been there for all of it, every single day. Wouldn’t be this happy without you.” 

“I can’t help but feel like this is a dream,” Jon said. “I can’t remember how I got here and none of it makes sense. We can’t have gotten this lucky, we… It’s not fair that I remember all the _shit_ and none of this,” he said, his voice cracking toward the end. “I don’t want to lose a whole life and just be left with--”

Martin quieted him with a hand on his back. “It’s not gone, Jon, I know it. You just need to rest and we’ll take you to see someone and we’ll get help. You’ll remember.” 

Jon took an uneasy breath and shook his head again, seeming now at a loss for words. 

“Listen, love, we’ve got an appointment at eleven and we’ve got a few hours until then. I really think you should use those to try to get a little more sleep, assuming this is all stress-induced.” 

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Just try, please?” he said. “I’ll stay right here with you.”

Jon looked for a moment as if he’d realized he was too tired to argue, so he simply nodded and settled back down on his pillow. Martin scooted closer and wove his hand back into his hair, gently scratching and stroking in all the ways he knew to get him to relax. 

Jon let his eyes flutter closed and softly said, “Will you tell me more?”

Martin let out a pained groan and wished immediately that he’d curtailed it. “Jon, if I’m honest… it’s not exactly easy for me to see you like this. I know you’re hurting, but it’s hurting me a bit to walk you through our whole life knowing you can’t remember any of it.”

Jon paused a moment. “I--I’m sorry. That makes sense.” 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, just… Let’s just relax? Just…” Martin slipped down beneath the covers with him and engulfed him in his arms. “I’ll hold you and you can just breathe and know I’m right here, and that I always have been, and that everything is going to be okay.”

“I hope so,” Jon said. “This has to be awful for you. I’m so sorry, Martin.” 

He nudged Jon’s temple with his forehead. “Don’t worry about me, alright?” 

But Jon shook his head, disregarding. “I’m _so_ sorry. I just wanted to give you the life you deserved, I’m--”

“Jon,” he said, halting his guilty ramblings. “You have. You did. Still do. You just can’t remember right now, but when you do, you’ll see, I promise. Please, just--just get a bit more rest. I’m begging you.”

“Alright,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll try.” 

He turned on his side to tuck his head into Martin’s chest, letting Martin hold him close and press gentle kisses to his hair. He was still tense and rigid, and Martin knew he was still grinding the gears in his mind rather than trying to fall asleep at all. 

“Can I--can I just ask, did…” Jon said with caution. “Did the others…?”

Martin pulled back a bit so he could cradle Jon’s cheek. “They’re all fine, love. Daisy and Basira are still in London, though they travel around a lot, and Georgie and Melanie live in Brighton with their kids.”

“Ah,” Jon said, sounding surprised to be delighted by the answer. This seemed to be the first bit of information that brought any actual relief to him as a grateful smile spread across his face. He let his eyes close and his head fall back into Martin’s chest.

Miraculously, Jon did fall back to sleep for an hour or so. Martin managed to slip out of his grip to grab his laptop so he could answer some emails from bed, and also do some ill-advised searching on the internet about transient global amnesia. 

It sounded like in most instances, the affected person lost the memory of the last few weeks, maybe months, but never a full eighteen years. This could be something a lot bigger, a lot worse than a minor bout of temporary amnesia. Martin’s breathing quickened and he looked down at his husband, curled against his leg. Even though all accounts claimed it would clear up in a matter of hours, his mind couldn’t stop racing with the possibilities. What would they do if this lasted? How would they even carry on? And for god’s sake, what about Ellen? He’d promised her Jon would be okay, because what else could he say? How do you tell your daughter her father might never remember her ever again? 

It wouldn’t be fair to lose him like this. Not after all this time, all they’d been through to get here. On a good day, Jon was still wracked with guilt from the past, always in the back of his mind, informing every choice he made. He deserved to keep his reward, all this happiness and quiet and the little family they had built together. Martin knew he deserved it himself, too. 

Jon awoke again with about an hour to spare before they had to leave the house. He blinked up at Martin, his face scrunched up in thought. “The Tate? Was that real?” 

Martin hoped he knew what he meant. “Yeah?”

“I just remembered sitting there after it was all over. And I… Proposed to you there, too? Was that later? Or…” He let out a small laugh. “You ruined it.”

Martin’s heart swelled at the memory. “Now, I don’t think I _ruined_ it, I just accidentally caught on to your very simple plan.”

Jon laughed again, more openly this time, a sound that drew some of the tension out of Martin’s shoulders for just a moment. He picked up Martin’s left hand in both of his own and examined his wedding ring.

“Yours is on your table over there,” Martin told him. “You don’t like to wear it to sleep.”

He immediately turned over to find it and slipped it on, staring at his own hand for a long moment. The corners of his mouth turned upwards ever so slightly. 

“Hey,” Martin said, reaching over to card his fingers through Jon’s hair. “This is a really good sign, love. I told you it would all come back.” 

At the first sign of optimism, Jon’s small smile faded. “There’s still so much missing.” 

“Give it time.” 

“I’m trying, it’s just so frustrating.”

“I know,” he said. “Come on, let’s get ready so we can go talk to people smarter than us.” 

He corralled Jon into the shower and then helped him find clothes to put on after. Martin himself changed out of the stiff shirt he’d put on earlier and into a jumper, allowing himself a moment to relish the novelty of changing out of work clothes when you’ve resigned to staying home instead.

Jon got caught up staring at himself in the mirror for a few minutes, tracing lines he couldn’t remember time etching into his face and raking his fingers through his now fully grey hair. Martin came up beside him and passed him the thick, cable knit cardigan that had once been his own, but at some point became Jon’s oversized jumper that he wore when he wanted to feel cozy. 

“Thank you, darling,” he muttered as he shrugged it on. 

Martin perked up at that. “Hey, that’s a new one. Or--it’s not at all, really, but you know what I mean.”

Jon squinted at him. “I’m not sure I do, but… Oh. I call you that a lot, don’t I? Darling.” 

“You do,” he said. “Might be my favorite word in the English language.”

“You also love ‘gossamer’,” he whispered, and Martin laughed, surprised.

“I do.” 

Suddenly irritated at nothing and everything, Jon rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “I can remember that, but not our wedding day, apparently.” 

Martin wound his arms around his waist and pressed a soothing kiss to his forehead. 

“It seems like little things are coming back, though, yeah? Let’s just take it as a good sign and not get ahead of ourselves."

“Fine,” he grumbled.

“We should get some food and a cup of tea in you before we leave,” he said, nodding toward the bedroom door. “Come on.”

Martin hoped he wasn’t reading into it too much when Jon seemed to know the layout of the house as naturally as ever. It was fairly intuitive, to be honest, a characteristic terraced house, two bedrooms upstairs, and the kitchen and living room below. Still, Jon automatically swerved into the kitchen when he arrived at the bottom of the stairs without a second thought. 

Martin followed behind as he entered the kitchen, glancing around at the little signs of a home well-lived in, the notes in his own handwriting on the calendar, all the photos stuck to the refrigerator held there by magnets. He froze in front of it.

“Oh god, Ellen,” he said. His eyes were glued to a shot Martin had taken of Ellen as a baby standing on Jon’s knees, his hands supporting her around her little belly. She was mid laugh and Jon was beaming right back at her. Not too far from it was Ellen’s school photo from last year, already so different from what she looked like now as she continued to mature through adolescence. 

“That’s her,” Martin said, tentative but hopeful. “Do you…?”

“I do,” he breathed, his voice high and desperate. “I do now. Everything about her. Well, it’s coming back in pieces, I don’t know how--how could I have lost that? My own daughter, she was just… gone. Fourteen years of her life, that’s--”

“Hey,” Martin said, coming over to squeeze his arm. “But you remember now. That’s what’s important.”

“Martin, what’s happening to me?” he whispered. 

“I don’t know, love. We’re going to find out.” 

He tugged at Jon’s arm to turn him away from the photos and into a comforting embrace. “I love you so much,” he said, nestling his lips into Jon’s hair. “It’ll be okay.” 

“I love you, too,” Jon said.

Martin chuckled softly. “At least you haven’t forgotten that.”

“I could never,” he whispered. “Then again, you’d think I’d be able to say the same about our daughter, and yet--”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Martin said. “Don’t get yourself worked up. Breakfast and tea, yeah?”

“Alright,” he said, and let Martin sit him down in a stool at the counter.

On the ride to his therapist’s office, Jon stared intently at his school when they passed it. 

“Is that… where Ellen goes?” he asked. 

“No, that’s… You teach there, love.”

“I--right. Of course. Christ,” he said, slumping back into the seat. “This makes me feel like an absolute idiot.”

“It’s not your fault,” Martin said, amused that his husband was missing memories of half his life and found time to fret about it making him feel a little less clever than usual. 

“I’m a teacher,” Jon said, contemplatively. “That’s starting to sound right, but also, utterly unrealistic.” 

“Jon, you’d probably say that on a normal day.”

He hummed a laugh. “Well, I guess that makes sense. It’s just dreadfully hard to believe someone trusts me to look after a classroom of children.” 

“You do a lot more than that, too,” Martin said. 

He looked over curiously. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you--” Martin paused, not quite sure if he wanted to dump on him the extent of his work since it was almost certainly the source of this whole episode. When they were first married, Jon had stumbled into establishing an advisory board for the handling of the apocalypse in classrooms, out of a concern for his particular school system’s chronic mismanaging of sensitive subjects and of course, his visceral need for atonement. It took a massive amount of time to get the board off the ground, but it was the only thing he felt even faintly tossed some weight on the other side of the scale against the Archivist’s actions. 

When Ellen came along, he’d eased up on his involvement a great deal so that he wasn’t working such long hours through her entire childhood. Then last year, one of his closest colleagues and oldest allies on the board had retired, leaving Jon the opportunity to take back some of his old responsibilities. 

“You just do a lot,” he settled on. “You know how you are, you pour everything you’ve got into it.”

“I’m sure you’re giving me far too much credit,” Jon said. 

Martin left it at that. 

Jon vaguely recognized his therapist when they arrived at his office. Of course, the man wasn’t particularly trained in treating memory loss. He was a therapist, not a neurologist. But it was comforting to be able to talk freely to someone about the point Jon had more or less returned to. He seemed content enough with Jon’s recovery so far that he thought he should be back to normal by the evening. Martin let go of a deep breath and sank back into the sofa, simply trying to process and believe that for a few minutes while Jon and his therapist talked. They worked through some bits that hadn’t quite resurfaced yet, which seemed to coax more and more memories out in small pieces, one thread connecting to another. By the end of it, Martin thought Jon looked lighter, just a step closer to the man he’d been in recent years who wasn’t constantly terrified every small comfort he was granted was a trap or a lie. 

When they got back in the car, Martin looked over at his husband for a moment before they got going.

“You’re coming back to me,” he said, with a small smile.

Jon returned it, though his was a bit more rueful. “I’m really trying.” 

The nurse in A&E confirmed that Jon was in otherwise good health, if not a bit dehydrated and sleep-deprived. The main accomplishment there was getting referrals for some scans to check for any bigger issues that could have been at play. Otherwise, at the rate Jon was remembering things seemed steady enough to be hopeful he needed no more than some stress-relief and some rest. 

They returned home and Martin sat him down on the sofa while he called to schedule further tests as directed, phone lodged between his ear and his shoulder as he made them both cups of tea. When he entered the living room, Jon was standing by the mantle and surveying the photos in frames there.

“This is from Ellen’s third birthday,” Jon said, pointing at said photo, and then another. “That’s Ellen with Georgie’s kids on Brighton Pier. And that’s from our tenth anniversary.”

“Cool party trick,” Martin said with nonchalance, to keep from showing how giddy with relief he was. He placed the tea down on the coffee table and sat on the edge of the sofa, watching him survey the other mementos on display. 

“Yes, I wish remembering basic facts about my life was this impressive every day,” Jon said. It just sounded so like him, that familiar wry tone that was so much more laid back than it once was years ago, with almost all of the day’s panic and uncertainty leached from it. Jon turned around to face him, his arms hanging limp by his sides. 

“I think it’s all back, Martin,” he said. “I mean, it’s not as if I can conjure every memory of the last eighteen years in an instant, but I feel… I feel more present. More me. I can hardly recall what it felt like to be missing all of it this morning.”

“Thank god.” 

Before he really knew what he was doing, Martin had bolted up from the couch and crossed the room with a blind urgency, stopping just short of Jon. For a moment, Martin just took in the sight of him, whole and returned to his proper mind, the man he’d lived all his best and worst days with standing before him with full knowledge of everything they’d been through together from the start. 

Utter and pure relief crashed over him in an instant. It rendered him boneless as he simply collided with Jon, pulling him into a crushing embrace. He burst into tears and buried his head in Jon’s shoulder, heaving through sobs he’d somehow kept in since the morning. He was vaguely aware that Jon’s stature made it difficult for him to support his whole weight, but he made an admirable show of trying, fixing his arms around Martin’s back and supporting him while he cried. 

“You’ve really been holding it all together today,” Jon whispered, punctuated by gentle kisses to the side of his head and gentle hands traveling up his curved spine. “Like you always do. Thank you, my darling.”

“I’m just so glad you’re back,” he choked. “God, I was scared. All I could think about was what we’d do if you didn’t remember, and how hard it would be for Ellen, and how it just wouldn’t be fair--”

“It’s alright, darling,” Jon whispered. “I’m alright. We’re fine.” 

He couldn’t quite parse what Jon was doing when he tried to extricate himself from his grip, which to be honest, made Martin cling harder. It became clearer when Jon walked him to the sofa and sat him down so he could continue to hold him, just in a more comfortable position. Martin felt entirely unwilling to let go, gripping handfuls of the back of Jon’s cardigan until his tears subsided and he was left just breathing in the scent of his husband there in his arms. All the while, Jon simply let him and whispered sweet reassurances until he finally felt able to lift his head. 

The moment he did, Jon surged forward and kissed him, hard and resolute. His thumbs moved across Martin’s cheeks, over his drying tear stains, and then into his hair, pulling back to press their foreheads together. 

“You are so strong,” Jon said, and Martin shook his head in weak denial. “You are. And we are so lucky to have you.”

“Jon, I barely kept my head on today,” he complained.

“Well, that’s not what I saw.”

Martin groaned and dropped his head to Jon’s neck again.

Fortunately, he pulled himself together by the time they heard the front door swing open in the late afternoon. Ellen stepped tentatively into the living room, eyeing them both intently to evaluate the prevailing feeling in the house. 

“Hey, Dad,” she said with a grimace, like she wasn’t sure she should have said it. 

“Hello, darling,” Jon said, desperate relief washing over his face at the sight of her.

“How are you?” she asked, all but running up to him. “Are you--do you--”

“I remember,” he said. He reached out for her and she dropped onto the sofa beside him. “It’s all come back. I’m so sorry, that was probably a very scary thing to hear this morning. 

“Yeah,” she said, falling into him immediately. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair like he hadn’t seen her in days. 

“What happened?” she asked, muffled by the embrace. “Do they know why?” 

Martin reached around Jon to rub Ellen’s shoulder. “We’ve got some tests scheduled so we can make sure it’s not some underlying problem, but chances are, it’s all because your genius dad here doesn’t know how to give himself a break.” His attempt at levity was weak, his smile weighed down by the day’s events. 

Ellen lifted her head to look between them. “Really? That’s it?”

“It would appear so,” Jon said, shaking his head at himself. 

“Dad, you really need to take it easy,” she said, bringing an amused chuckle out of him.

“Where have I heard that before?” he said, craning around to give Martin a look. 

Throughout the rest of the evening, Ellen made a bit of a game of testing Jon’s memory, quizzing him on bits of trivia about herself and about Martin with her quiet, biting wit. It quickly became clear that by now, any lapse in his recall was actually his own fault, his brief affliction no longer to blame, so it really only served to draw out what particular facts Jon just hadn’t paid enough attention to. He acted disgruntled and offended when berated for forgetting the name of Martin’s childhood dog, but it had them laughing and needling each other like always and the contentment in Jon’s eyes was contagious. 

After dinner, Martin sent Jon to get ready for bed while he did the washing up, somehow overpowering his protests with a bit of a guilt trip, ( _“Please? For me?”_ ) Martin found him under the covers, admittedly much more at ease than he found him there that morning. He climbed into bed beside him and promptly pulled him close, peppering his face with kisses. 

Jon managed to fight him off with an amused little, “Alright, alright,” and he sat back, propped up on an elbow so he could look deep into Martin’s eyes. The amused smile Martin’s overbearing affection had painted on Jon’s face faltered a bit. 

“Martin, I… I know it’s not as if I chose for today to happen, but I really am sorry. I’m sorry you had to go through that. I hate that you did.” 

He was too tired to keep fielding apologies, so he just nodded. “I know, love.” 

Jon ran his hand down the length of his arm until he came to grip Martin’s fingers, pulling his knuckles to his lips. 

There’d been something he planned on bringing up when they settled down, something needling at the back of his head all day. It probably wasn’t fair to drop such a question on Jon after the day they’d had, but he didn’t want to let the conversation fall by the wayside when the normality of their day to day set back in. He couldn’t bear something like this happening again. 

“Jon,” he said gently. “I know you’re not gonna like this, but I’m just going to say it. Do you think it’s… Do you think it might be time to take a step back from the board?”

Jon stared at him for a moment as the words set in. He then gave a heaving sigh and dropped Martin’s hand, slowly falling back against his pillow. 

“Martin, I barely do half of what I used to--” 

“The only thing that saved you from seventy-hour work weeks back then was Ellen,” he cut in, beginning to feel ruthless and convicted. “And you know you’ve started to take on more now that she’s older because you feel like you can.” 

A strained silence fell and Martin’s gaze stayed firmly fixed on Jon. He continued to stare at some point on the opposite wall, avoiding Martin’s eyes. He couldn’t quite tell if he was getting through or not so he pressed on regardless. 

“But the thing is, my love… You’re also getting older. And don’t take this the wrong way, but you just can’t do everything you used to do.” 

To his surprise, Jon nodded and whispered, “I know. You’re probably right.” 

“I know it’s your nature to work yourself to death, but… And stop me if I’m wrong, but it’s kind of a vestige from a time when you felt like you didn’t have anything else. But now you do.”

Martin felt his eyes beginning to prickle. 

“I just want you to be here, Jon,” he said, trying to keep his voice from wavering. “I can’t--I don’t want to lose you. You know I’ll do anything in my power to take care of you, but you’ve got to do your part on that front, too.” 

An age old controversy. The need to wield it waxed and waned over the years. Usually, it came out in frustration, even anger, that Jon still hadn’t learned that his own well-being was directly tied to the amount of time he put into work at the expense of rest. Tonight, though, Martin’s plea was fueled only by desperation.

“I’m not saying--this isn’t a matter of not spending enough time with your family or coming home earlier or something like that. What I mean is I want you _here._ In general. I want you here _with_ us, with me. Until the last possible moment we can hang on this mortal coil and absolutely no sooner.” He was properly crying now, pounding a fist into the bed. “I will _not_ lose you. I won’t. I just won’t.” 

Jon’s hand closed around that fist and gently pried it open, pressing palm against palm and weaving their fingers together. 

“I… Martin, you’re right,” he said. “I probably could stand to take another step back. I need to… reevaluate.”

Martin wiped his eyes, steadying himself with a breath so he could retreat into a more pragmatic appeal. 

“You’ve got a really good team on your side,” he said. “You can trust them if you let go of the reins a bit.”

Jon shook his head. “No, I know, I’m--it’s not that. I don’t feel like I’m the only one who can do the work. It’s…” 

He trailed off, staring down at the duvet. Martin nodded slowly. 

“It’s the penance thing, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Always.” 

Martin let out a sigh and nodded again, in lieu of anything else. He reached his arm around Jon’s shoulders and pulled him into his chest, where he rested his head like it was always meant to be there.

They laid in silence, breathing against each other while it came into focus what kept Jon running forward in the years since the apocalypse. The thing about Jon’s persistent guilt was that no amount of therapy or reassurance or love from his family, no list of good deeds and reconstructive work he’d done could ever really squash it entirely. It always led to the same circular conversation and Martin figured for now, they could spare one more go at it. They’d dealt with enough today. 

Instead, he let their solemn words slowly dissolve into the air until the silence felt more settled, waiting until it seemed a good enough moment to try to lighten the mood. 

“Well, anyway,” he said, hearing his own voice come out a bit wrecked still. “Remember when you almost called me old to my face this morning?”

Jon let out a strangled, indignant noise and ducked his head, a shameful laugh shaking his shoulders. “Look, I thought--”

“Oh, I know what you thought,” Martin said, gaining strength in being mock offended. “You mean to tell me that if you’d turned to me the second the change reversed and saw this--” He gestured to his face. “You’d have gone, ‘ _Oh god,_ what happened to my beautiful, youthful boyfriend? He’s gone all wrinkly and saggy and balding and--’”

“Did I say _anything_ of the sort?” Jon said, going for indignant but hardly staving off laughter. “If you woke up tomorrow and suddenly I was 70, I think you might have a similar reaction.” 

“I’m only teasing,” Martin said, laborious and reluctant. 

“Yes, yes,” Jon said. He leaned into him again and threw his arms around Martin’s neck, nestling as close as possible. “God, I… It’s been a long day.” 

“Certainly has.”

“It’s funny,” Jon said. “You know, that was sort of the opposite of something I used to worry about a lot.”

“Hm?”

“I used to imagine one day I’d wake up and be right back there and all this was a lie, a cruel fantasy I dreamed up lying half-dead on the Panopticon floor or something like that. Instead, I woke up and had to come to terms with the fact that it’s all real.” 

Martin swept his hand up Jon’s back to cradle his neck. “It’s all real. Every bit of it,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Even your husband’s saggy, old face.” 

A steady growl erupted out of Jon’s throat and he suddenly climbed over him in a fumbling maneuver, landing astride Martin’s lap. “If you don’t stop that,” he said as he bent to kiss him with an irritated smile. 

“I’m not going to let you live it down, at least not any time soon.” 

Jon groaned miserably and brought his lips to Martin’s again to shut him up. They kissed lazily as if they had endless time stretching out before them, no reason to rush, no ticking clocks, no hungry demons lurking in the dark and waiting to snatch their hearts away if they let their guard down. They hadn’t had to worry about things like that in eighteen years and they weren’t about to start now. 

Martin gently rolled him onto his side, settling Jon back onto his own pillow and pushing his hair back out of his face. “For god’s sake, let’s get some sleep.”

“Fine,” Jon muttered, pressing one more kiss to his lips before turning over and wedging his back against Martin’s chest. 

Martin curled his arm tight around him. “Try to wake up with all your memories intact, yeah?”

He felt Jon’s chest shake with a quiet laugh. “I’ll do my best.”

**Author's Note:**

> well that was a disjointed doozy to write 
> 
> i have a new shitty lil twitter in case anyone would like to interact with me, please talk to me  
> @pantsoflobster
> 
> if you liked this universe but haven't read mushaboom, it's a lot more wanton fluff than this (even though this barely stayed sad for five minutes bc i'm a coward)
> 
> hope you enjoyed!!


End file.
